1/12/12 Daily Grind: The end of globalization?
Thursday, January 12, 2012 at 10:49AM The end of globalization?
By Bill Wilson
Over the past century, economies have become more integrated — trading more goods and services around the world, moving capital globally, labor being shifted overseas, and just recently in history, the worldwide dissemination of information has become instantaneous with the power of the Internet.
It's often called globalization, and it's certainly nothing new.
Ironically, there is a growing movement in the U.S. and other countries towards localism and community-based solutions. On the right, it is seen in proposals to shift entitlement spending to the states to be managed. On the left, it is seen in the preference to purchase fresh produce locally as a means to reducing one's "carbon footprint".
This paradox — the individual's desire to be left alone in their local community while governments and economies move towards monolithic, less personal global systems — stands at the heart of the conflict that will define this century.
That is because globalization is not just an economic process, it is also seen in the expansion of government. It is a utopian impulse.
For example, as Europe and the rest of the developed world continues to struggle to find a way out from under its unsustainable debt, governments and international financial institutions are moving towards ever-larger global superstructures, such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), to manage the increasingly shaky house of cards.
Get full story here.
New bill in the House threatens citizenship
By Rebecca DiFede
As recently reported by NetRightDaily, the Senate passed the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act, a $662 billion Defense bill. It gives the military the power to lock up any and all suspected terrorists, whether captured here or abroad, and hold them indefinitely. Despite empty veto threats from our illustrious president, the bill passed 93-7.
Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) added in an amendment that guaranteed the current laws on the detention of citizens would stand, and in extreme cases the Supreme Court can decide if an exception would be granted. So at least if you were an American you would be somewhat protected from government locking you up and throwing away the key.
However, all that might be at stake. A new bill has been introduced that will override that amendment by allowing the government, upon suspicion of terrorist activity, to strip you of your citizenship (or naturalized status), disqualifying you from any and all the freedoms provided by the Constitution.
It is called The Enemy Expatriation Act (H.R.3166) and it is the stuff of nightmares. Introduced by Charles Dent [PA-15], and co-sponsored by Jason Altmire [PA-4], Robert Latta [OH-5] and Frank Wolf [VA-10], this bill allows the government to remove the nationality of anyone who the government says is participating in terrorist activity. The Senate companion bill, S. 1698, was introduced by Sen. Joe Lieberman (ID-CT), with Sen. Scott Brown as its sole cosponsor.
People can come into your home, arrest you, strip you of your citizenship and detain you as long as they see fit because they suspect that you might be doing something they don't like.
Speechless? You should be.
Get full story here.
ALG Editor's Note: In the following featured column from Forbes.com, Richard Grant refutes Paul Krugman's assertion that debt owed to ourselves is irrelevant:
No Dr. Krugman, Government Debt Matters Because It's Ours
By Richard Grant
When Nobel laureate Paul Krugman began a recent New York Times column by showing concern about "disastrously high unemployment," we could sympathize with his assertion that too much attention is focused on "the allegedly urgent issue of reducing the budget deficit." After all, there are many other factors that prevent us from employing our resources in the most productive uses. We are overregulated, overtaxed, overinflated, and the government spends wastefully and too much.
If we were to prioritize any of those policies, such as cutting tax rates, then we could justify tolerating high deficits a little longer. The brighter prospects for higher growth and improved resource employment would increase our future debt-service capacity.
But this is not what Professor Krugman is talking about. He believes that we need more government spending, not less. Drawing inspiration from John Maynard Keynes, he remarks that Keynes wrote about the need to spend our way out of the depression when "Britain was deeper in debt than any advanced nation today, with the exception of Japan."
Krugman supports his argument by noting that Britain "has had debt exceeding 100 percent of GDP for 81 of the last 170 years." We could be forgiven for rather doubting that this supports his argument.
Get full story here.
